Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, announced that it has attracted an equity investment from Seventure Partners, a leading investor in the microbiome space. This new investment of £4m brings the total equity raised to date to £12m.

The company, which was founded in 2016 to develop transformational technology developed at the Sanger Institute, has made rapid progress in developing a unique capability to culture, characterise and phenotype the majority of a patient’s gut bacteria, enabling the precise association of bacteria to function at clinical trial scale.

Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said:

“The microbiome represents a paradigm shift which requires the re-evaluation of almost every aspect of biomedicine. Microbiotica’s world-leading microbiome culture collection and reference genome database enable unprecedented precision of gut bacterial identification and provide the foundation for the company to develop its own pipeline of microbiome-derived therapeutics and biomarkers. We look forward to working with Iain Wilcock, who will join the Microbiotica Board of Directors, and with the broader Seventure team led by Isabelle De Cremoux.”

Isabelle de Cremoux, CEO of Seventure Partners, said:

“We have watched Microbiotica make dramatic progress in implementing its vision and believe the company has developed a powerful set of capabilities for biomarker and therapeutic discovery in the microbiome field. We believe that the company has the potential to become a global leader in this fast-growing area, led by a strong and ambitious management team with considerable depth of expertise and experience, and are excited to be involved in helping realise this potential.”

As a result of this investment, Microbiotica’s shareholders comprise the Founders, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge Innovation Capital, IP Group plc and Seventure Partners.